


For your drink today, I recommend.

by orange_crushed



Series: Today, your barista 'verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Fluff, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 13:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_crushed/pseuds/orange_crushed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Is that-"</i>
</p><p>  <i>"My number," says Dean, because he's a fucking champion, he's cool, he's collected, he's Captain Smooth of the USS Smoothtania, that's right. He is definitely not leaning against the counter for moral support. Cas doesn't looked seduced or impressed, though. He does not look like a dude who just met Captain Smooth and wants to ride the loveboat. He looks puzzled. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	For your drink today, I recommend.

**Author's Note:**

> Ficlet based on this [coffeeshop!au tumblr prompt](http://brolininthetardis.tumblr.com/post/51732496539/this-is-a-coffeeshop-au-screaming-to-be-brought):
> 
>  

Dean stares at the sign for a long time- uh, probably longer than he should- before he shakes his head and swings the door open. Inside, there's the usual buzz of muted conversations, laptop keys clicking, the clank and hiss of the steamer. It's Sam's favorite place, more like a haunt or a lair when school is really cranking, and so Dean glances over at the window seat unconsciously before he remembers that Sam's still out of town, coming back Monday. He's on a road trip with Jess, hiking and communing with nature and eating granola bars out of each other's hands or some shit. Whatever. Dean sighs and stands in line with his hands jammed into his jacket pockets, and he's almost forgotten about that sign by the time he gets to the counter. And then:

"Hey, Dean. Your usual?" Dean tries not to stare, he really does. But it's _Cas_.

Cas. The guy who never forgets a regular, who always smiles at Dean when he leaves a coin in the take-a-penny. Who takes Dean's advice about music playlists, even when Sam complains that Black Sabbath is a shitty soundtrack for a coffee shop and _he's trying to read here, Dean, oh my God_. The guy who makes little drawings in the latte foam- really, the whole reason he started drinking the fancy shit is because Sam used to show off the leaves and kitten faces to the whole table, and Dean got curious about who the hell would care enough about other people's coffee to bother. Cas, who actually drew the fucking Chevy logo in a latte for him on his birthday two months ago. And now, here, today: Cas, blue-eyed and pretty and fresh-looking, somehow, in a wrinkled white apron that has faint coffee stains across the middle. Looking up at him expectantly, wearing stubble and a faintly confused smile. Dean flashes back to a single phrase from the blackboard: _hella fucking gay_. This is, at least to Dean, brand new information. His brain tries to take it in a piece at a time, and shorts completely like an ancient PC.

"Um," says Dean.

"You alright?" Cas tilts his head. "You need a glass of water?" 

"No, no- I'm good. Yeah, my usual. Thanks." Cas smiles and hums to himself and starts on Dean's drink, asking questions about Sam and Jess and work, while Dean very manfully resists the urge to run screaming out of the building and into a cartoon rocket ship aimed towards the moon.

When Cas is finished and hands his drink over, Dean hands him back a credit card and the nine-coffees-tenth-coffee-free card to stamp. While his receipt prints out, Dean stares at the pen on the counter with a strange desire bubbling in his treacherous head. Go on, his brain tells him. Go on go on go on. _Fuck you, brain_ , he thinks back. _You're not the boss of me_. But when he's got the pen in his hand and he's signing on the dotted line, he decides. Dean writes something on the top of the receipt, big enough that it's impossible to miss, and then underlines it twice, and hands it back to Cas carefully, with what he hopes is a normal and totally casual human smile, and not what Sam calls his 'happy secret murderer face.' Cas takes the receipt, but shoots him back an odd look almost immediately.

"Is that-"

"My number," says Dean, because he's a fucking champion, he's cool, he's collected, he's Captain Smooth of the USS Smoothtania, that's right. He is definitely not leaning against the counter for moral support. Cas doesn't looked seduced or impressed, though. He does not look like a dude who just met Captain Smooth and wants to ride the loveboat. He looks puzzled. 

"You're the fourth person to do this today," he says. He gives Dean a slightly accusatory glance. "Is it some kind of collective prank? Is this-" Cas pauses. "A flash mob thing?" Dean gapes at him. "I don't understand the joke." Dean can feel a bead of sweat go down the back of his neck, and tries to keep his smile from going rigid. 

"It was on the- uh," Dean says, feeling the words slip out of his mouth like marbles. "Sign," he manages. "It said you- the sign said," Dean tries, and just stops. It sounds feeble, even to him. Cas's eyes narrow.

"What sign?" he hisses. "The sign out _front_?" There is now a hysterical edge in his voice, a kind of trembling, angry energy. Dean nods, and tries not to think about how how hot that is. "Please excuse me," says Cas, overly formal, even though there's nobody else in line behind Dean. He turns towards the kitchen door and bangs through it, and on the other side Dean can hear him yell, " _Gabriel!_ " There's the sound of scuffling and things being dropped into a sink, some muffled yelling, and then the oddly unmistakable sound of a French press being hammered into human flesh. When Cas comes back out of the kitchen, his cheeks are pink. "I'm sorry," he says. "Someone thinks they're extremely funny." He slips out from the counter and goes outside, and after a second he's got the signboard under his arm. He drops it against the back of the cold case, and slides back behind the counter. He stares at the linoleum for a second, almost sadly, and then back up at Dean. "Did you want something else?" he asks.

"No," says Dean, automatically. He smiles and waves a hand and turns around before Cas can even say _goodbye_ back to him, feeling so fucking humiliated that he wonders if there's a rock around big enough for him to crawl under and die. That feeling sticks around through all of Friday, and is probably the reason why he drinks too much and falls asleep face-down on the couch, like he's trying to burrow through it and escape harsh reality by becoming a human groundhog. He wakes up on Saturday with his head pounding and his eyes crossed. He wants coffee immediately, and then thinks, _I can never ever ever go there again_ , and then hates himself for having becoming Taylor Swift overnight. Just a fucking misunderstanding, he tells himself. Just a joke. He ought to go back today, to prove it was no biggie. With the momentum of that thought he makes it into his clothes and into the car and all the way into the coffee shop before he is suddenly the last one in line- the only one in line again- and Cas is staring at him, looking pretty much the way Dean feels.

"Hello, Dean," says Cas. It's blunter than usual. It stings.

"What did you do with it?" Dean blurts out. It's a surprise, even to Dean. He looks around, but the five people in the store are just as bleary-eyed and miserable-looking as Dean is, and they're not paying any attention to him. Cas squints. "With my number?" Dean adds, practically in a whisper. Cas's eyes go wide, incredibly wide, like a startled animal's.

"I threw them out," he says. "My co-worker's idea of a joke-"

"It wasn't a joke," Dean says. He knows it's rude to cut people off, but whatever, the ship is already on fire and Dean's going down with it. "I mean- mine wasn't a joke." There is a frankly unbearable and practically eternal silence of about eighteen seconds.

"Oh," says Cas.

"Sorry if-"

"No," says Cas, firmly, seriously. "Don't apologize. Yours was the only number I wanted."

Dean tries to remember how to take in air. It's difficult. _Christ_ , he thinks, how do people get the guts to just say that shit out loud? Dean can barely tell people _Happy New Year_ without feeling like an asshole. Dean inhales, finally, and then Dean pulls a business card out of his wallet- Singer Automotive, service and retail, he's got cards now, oh yeah, big time Deano- and writes his cell number on the back. He slides the card across the counter. Cas looks at him for a long minute, examining the surface of Dean, until Dean has the weirdest suspicion that he's actually staring right into Dean's heart, Dean's soul, straight through the meat to the center. It's unnerving, and also kind of wonderful.

"So, you know," Dean says. "Just in case." Well, okay, he is super good at ruining the moment. But Cas smiles at him anyway, crookedly.

"In case I'm hella fucking gay?" Cas asks, and Dean's brain falls out onto the floor and gasps like a goldfish.

"Yeah," says Dean. "That."

"I'll call you," Cas says, like he means it. Dean wonders, nervously, if he does. And so Dean is incredibly surprised when his cell rings six hours later. He is washing oil and grit off his hands, and has to juggle the phone with the cleanest fingers and jam it against his ear. He can barely hear Cas over the sounds of his own garage radio, so he goes outside, back into the yard, and asks again:

"What?"

"I said, my shift's over." Dean takes that sentence in, and does nothing with the information, until Cas says, "If you're not busy."

" _NOI'mnotbusy_ ," says Dean, casually.

He's never driven anywhere so fast in his whole fucking life. En route, he wonders what you get the person who accidentally got you what you most wanted? He's going to have to find out who Gabriel is, and figure out what kind of thank-you gift covers ' _your prank sign is fulfilling all my sexual fantasies_.' Flowers, chocolates, booze? Gift certificates to Red Lobster? Hot stone massage? Cas is waiting on the stoop outside the coffee shop when Dean pulls up; he stands and stretches and a sliver of tanned, toned stomach appears in the gap between his jeans and shirt. Dean's dick briefly attempts to wrestle muscle control away from his brain, but unsuccessfully. "Hey," Dean says, instead of the _oh Jesus_ his dick was loudly suggesting. Cas leans into the open window and gives a weird little wave and opens the door to slide in. He's more relaxed than Dean's ever seen him, no apron, no customers, no counter between them when he sits down on the bench seat and his knee almost bumps Dean's. "Where to?"

"Anywhere," says Cas.

"Anywhere," Dean repeats. He smiles at Cas and Cas smiles back, like an infinite loop of the best song in the universe. "I can do anywhere," says Dean.

 

..


End file.
